


Winter Screwed

by Denois



Series: Stacks [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Date, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Christopher "Chowder" Chow, References to character development shown primarily in bitty's twitter, canon compliant for all you know, catastrophizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 10:57:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21474874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denois/pseuds/Denois
Summary: Dex stepped into Chowder’s room at the Haus with a final glance down the hall to make sure no one else was around.  “Hey Chowder. Don’t worry about finding a date for Nursey for Winter Screw, okay? I got someone for him.”“Oh! Swawesome. Wait, you’re not setting him up with someone bad to be mean, are you?” Chowder’s eyes were quickly narrowing and Dex held up his hands and backed towards the door.“No. Of course not. He’s my friend. It’s someone that I hope he’ll actually like.”
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Series: Stacks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547926
Comments: 8
Kudos: 226





	Winter Screwed

**Author's Note:**

> The long awaited for prequel to Stacks. Ok, it can't be that long because I wrote Stacks only a few months ago. Still. Prequel to Stacks showing how they started dating. 
> 
> Winter Screw their Sophomore year.

Dex stepped into Chowder’s room at the Haus with a final glance down the hall to make sure no one else was around. “Hey Chowder. Don’t worry about finding a date for Nursey for Winter Screw, okay? I got someone for him.”

“Oh! Swawesome. Wait, you’re not setting him up with someone bad to be mean, are you?” Chowder’s eyes were quickly narrowing and Dex held up his hands and backed towards the door.

“No. Of course not. He’s my friend. It’s someone that I hope he’ll actually like.”

* * *

“Your date will meet you at the bench outside of Founders. They’ll have a boutonnière for you, a flower.”

“Chill. Boutonnières aren’t standard for Winter Screw, Poindexter.”

Dex swallowed. “Ayuh. That’s true. Must be wicked keen on impressing you.” 

Nursey looked at him critically and twisted his face in consideration. “You aren’t setting me up with some whack, conservative, hyper-privileged, up-tight comp sci major to chirp me are you?”

Dex set his jaw. He could feel his ears burning and knew he must be blushing. It’s not like Nursey didn’t know that he knew what Nursey had called him at the start of their frog year. “Like I told Chowder, it’s someone I hope you’ll actually like.”

* * *

Dex moved his fingers, making the small green carnation boutonnière spin between them. This was stupid. He was stupid. He never should have tried this. Nursey wasn’t there because Nursey saw who was waiting and went back home. Or eloped with the first person he saw that was better than Dex. They’d get a message to Frog Chat tomorrow with a picture of Nursey and his new spouse. He’d buy them a casserole dish or something. If they registered for anything he could afford. Maybe he’d just make them a set of coasters. He could carve leaves into the face of them, or maybe go mixed media and apply actual leaves to the base and then seal it with resin.

He sighed and rubbed his free hand over the leg of the pants of his game day suit. That was another thing Nursey could chirp him about later, trying to show up for a date with Derek Malik Nurse in his game day suit like it was good enough. 

Then, Nursey was sitting next to him, pressed close, like Nursey always did. “Chill. Picked the same meet up spot so you could see my reaction to whoever you set me up with. You’re devious, Poindexter.”

“That’s n-”

“Oh, you got a boutonnière too. Women usually get corsages, Dexy. And green carnations are a weird choice, they’re typically associated with gay men because-”

“Because Oscar Wilde. I know. I know, Nurse.” Dex scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. This was a stupid idea. Here.” He shoved the flower into Nursey’s hands and stood up. 

He only got two steps before Nursey called after him. “Stop.” 

Everything in him was telling him to keep walking. To spare himself from the chirps he was about to receive. But Nursey asked him to stop. And he couldn’t deny Nursey that. He shoved his hands into his pockets and waited. 

“You set me up with yourself?”

Dex shrugged without turning. “I said it was stupid, but it’s whatever. Guess I won at screwing over my friend. But hey, you know, there’s probably dozens of people at the dance who would ditch their date to be with you. So, it doesn’t have to be a loss, right?” 

He didn’t wait for a reply, just started walking and muttering to himself. “It’s not like I even wanted to go to a stupid dance. School dances are awkward and weird and everyone’s just hoping you’ll make a bigger idiot out of yourself than they made out of themselves so that they won’t be the one laughed at. Who wants to deal with the weird popularity contests anyway?”

“Ok. Well, we could go to the late night cinema if you don’t want to go to the dance.” 

Dex stopped and turned to stare at Nursey who must have jogged to catch up with him. “What?”

“But could you pin the boutonnière first? I’d do it myself but that way always includes the possibility of blood.”

“What?”

Nursey held the carnation out to him. “Put it on my coat?” 

He couldn’t feel his fingers as he took the flower and pinned it to Nursey’s lapel.

“Chill. If I heard correctly, you don’t want to go to the dance, which is chill because I wasn’t really wanting to go either but figured you set me up, I should at least make an appearance.” 

“What?”

“Well, you’d be mad if I stood up your friend, right? Except it was you. Wow. I’m glad I showed up. But chill. Anyway. Date. Tonight. We’re on one. Ch’yeah. Except neither of us wants to go to the Winter Screw. So, let’s go to the late night cinema and watch an old movie. If you want.”

“You want to go on a date with me?”

“Ch’yeah. I mean. We are on a date. So that works out.” 

“Oh.” He paused, thinking. “Even if I’m a whack, hyper-privileged, up-tight, conservative asshole?”

“You know. That’s on me. You never were all those things. And you’ve been working on the others, so yeah. I wanna go on a date with you. Stop staring at me like that. I’m serious.”

Dex blinked. “Ok. Guess this means I don’t need to make you coasters.”

“Nah. Wait, coasters?”


End file.
